The Sigtuna Foundation and CEUMS, Center for the Environment and Development Studies at Uppsala University has for over a decade worked together on the issue of climate change and its moral, psychological and cultural aspects. We live in a world shadowed by climate change. This crisis is often conveyed using numbers and figures – rather than stories of human experiences. The political changes proposed are often focused on economic or technological solutions – rather than moral or psychological aspects. Very little is said about the need to question our lifestyles, worldviews and relationships with the more-than-human world in our response to climate change. Within the collaboration between The Sigtuna Foundation and CEMUS, four Climate Existence Conferences has been organized to explore these questions, the fifth was planned to takes place in May 2020 but is postponed to 12-14 August 2021.

Climate Existence, The Sigtuna Foundation 12-14 August 2021

Are we now in the tunnel at the end of the light?

Climate Change has become a reality with little room to maneuver. Some talk about changes that would be detrimental to many of the things we have built our societies on. The more-than-human world is being slaughtered all around us in the name of progress and greed. Meanwhile psychologists talk about depression, sadness, acceptance and climate grief.

But, at the same time, youth are rising up, regardless of any abstract notion of hope. The current pandemic also highlights the improtance of lifestyle, solidarity and responsibility. And as we anguish, people, plants, animals around the world are struggling without respite, and have been for a long time.

What would it mean to be in the tunnel at the end of the light? A tunnel can also be a place of refuge, or an escape route. When our eyes become accustomed to the darkness, what is it we will see? What kind of existential questions do we need to ask? How do we stop running from disaster to disaster? Incident to incident?

CEMUS and the Sigtuna Foundation welcome you to the fifth ClimateExistence 2021! Together we will ask the difficult questions, searching in the darkness for glimpses of light to guide or steps forward. Venturing into the blackest black, standing closer to the edge, stepping into the void.

I want to stand as close to the edge as I can without going over. Out on the edge you see all the kinds of things you can’t see from the center.
Kurt Vonnegut

Fore information on the conference, and registration climateexistence.se

Climate Existens 2018
Climate Existence Conference 2018, gathered about one hundred participants from all around the world. Read more about Climate Existence 2018 – Pathways in the shadow of climate change and see A short film on the Climate Existence 2018